Martha Kearney

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Martha Catherine Kearney (born October 8, 1957, Dublin) is a British broadcaster and journalist.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Kearney was raised in an academic environment in Sussex and Edinburgh; her father, the historian Hugh Kearney, taught at the universities there.[1] She was educated at St Josephs RC Primary School in Burgess Hill, then her historian father had a sabbatical in Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania and she briefly went to the private Ellis Academy. Later she went to St Wilfrid's RC School in Burgess Hill (the former St Josephs) and the direct-grant grammar school Brighton and Hove High School (now a girls' independent school) in Brighton, for one year then at George Watson's College, a co-educational independent school in Edinburgh, when her father became Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh. She initially found anti-English sentiment in Edinburgh and took five Higher exams. She later read Classics at St Anne's College, Oxford (1976-80), where men were not allowed in women's rooms overnight. She met her friend Imogen Parker at the college, and volunteered for hospital radio in her final year. After graduating, Kearney began her career with a variety of jobs at the London commercial radio station, LBC. In 1988, she and her boyfriend Chris went on a world expedition, briefly giving up their jobs.

[edit] BBC career

In 1998, she moved to the BBC, as a regular presenter of BBC Radio 4's long-running Woman's Hour. In 2000 she became Political Editor of Newsnight on BBC Two. In addition, Kearney often presented the programme, as well as its semi-independent cultural affairs supplement Newsnight Review. She has also been an occasional presenter of the Today Programme on Radio 4. She was a candidate to succeed Andrew Marr as BBC Political Editor in 2005 but lost out to Nick Robinson.

Kearney presented her final Woman's Hour on 19 March 2007 and her final Newsnight on 23 March 2007, before taking up her new role as the lead presenter of Radio 4's lunchtime news and current affairs programme The World at One on 16th April 2007. She remains an occasional presenter on Newsnight Review.[2]

On the BBC comedy series Time Trumpet she featured in a segment called 'Honey, I Shrunk Martha Kearney' (a fictional revamped Newsnight), in which Jeremy Paxman interviews her, a third of her normal height.[3] In August and September 2006, she presented a series on Radio 4 with her father[1], called The Idea of a University[4], looking at the history of universities in the United Kingdom. This programme was broadcast on Thursdays on Radio 4.

[edit] Personal life

Martha Kearney married Chris Shaw (born June 19 1957), journalist and senior programme controller on Five television, in July 2001 in Depwade in South Norfolk.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b When Sussex was Martha Kearneys playground
  2. ^ BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight | Friday, 23rd March, 2007
  3. ^ BBC - Comedy Blog - It's About Time
  4. ^ BBC Radio 4: The Idea of a University

[edit] External links